Game On

Game of Thrones: How Women Went from Victims to Conquerors

This post contains frank discussion of Season 6, Episode 10 “The Winds of Winter.” If you are not caught with the season finale, now is the time to leave.

Ever since the first episode of this season, Game of Thrones has made it clear that it intended to flip the script on gender roles in Westeros. Co-creator David Benioff has said that this theme coursing through the season has nothing to do with the controversy over Sansa Stark’s sexual assault last year, which got so much traction that a U.S. Senator called it out. “The thing that’s slightly frustrating,“ Benioff said, “Is the idea that we’re responding to criticism from last year, so therefore we’re going to beef up the female roles—that’s blatantly untrue.”

But regardless of why it happened, there’s no denying that the female roles have been beefed up this season. With Cersei’s ominous coronation, we now have women ruling in King’s Landing, Dorne, Highgarden (RIP, most of the Tyrells) and Daenerys and Yara coming for the Iron Islands and the rest of Westeros. Sure, Jon is King in the North, but it was ferocious Lyanna Mormont—shaming a room full of grown-ass men—who put him there. (More on Sansa and her role in all that later.) In order to get there, Weiss and Benioff had to ignore the technical rules of succession in Westeros. But, you can’t say they didn’t warn you that might happen.

Beyond ruling, we’ve had women violently take revenge on their aggressors all season. Yara stealing her uncle’s fleet out from under him may be low on the list when compared to Daenerys burning Dothraki rapists to the ground, Sansa feeding her rapist to the dogs, and Cersei flambé-ing everyone who stripped her down and humiliated her last season. But perhaps the most outrageous victory belongs to Arya Stark, who got to pick up a much-beloved book plot. In George R.R. Martin’s novels it’s Wyman Manderly, a portly Northern lord who makes a show appearance during Jon’s coronation, who feeds Walder Frey’s sons to him in pie form. It’s much more narratively satisfying to give that job to Arya. Even if we also have to wonder what poor serving girl she had to kill to get that face.

But for all the gender-reversal satisfaction there is to be mined in the rise of women this season, we’re only six seasons into what will, presumably, be an eight season series. As Daenerys will tell you, it’s nearly impossible to stay on top of the wheel of power. And as David Benioff said in the post-episode interview on HBOGo, Arya’s dark path is a “worrisome narrative.” Watching Arya’s smiling face standing over Walder Frey’s dead body, Benioff said, “If you love Arya you have to be worried about where she goes from there.”

We should probably adopt that same attitude about Sansa, then, and her dark little smile last week as Ramsay Bolton went to the dogs. She had her moments of true strength in this episode, apologizing to Jon and calling him her true brother and brushing off Littlefinger’s creepy proposition...

...but it’s clear that both Ramsay and Littlefinger have done a number on her and the trust issues and occasional bursts of power cravings in her will probably lead to a rift between Sansa and her brother (cousin!) down the road.

And speaking of sibling rivalry, it looks like the death of Tommen may be what finally drives a wedge between Cersei and Jaime. In the novels, there’s a prophecy (that the show has ignored) that Cersei will be murdered by her little brother. Cersei believed her whole life it would be Tyrion, but Jaime is technically younger than her. Will he be the one to do her in? Those certainly weren’t looks of love he was throwing her way.

Thus far the likeliest female power contingent in the Seven Kingdoms to hang on their power is the bloc involving Dany, Yara, Olenna, and the Sand Snakes (with Tyrion and Varys in key advisory positions). Those women, who promise vengeance for their fallen families and to build a better world than their fathers did, are coming to Westeros to clean house. And, as Daenerys pointed out, she has no intention of climbing the ladder the old-fashioned way. Cooly ditching her side-piece Daario, she says she’s not sure she has to marry in order to consolidate her power base.

But, yes, the women of Westeros are still very vulnerable to quirks of fate and military upsets that bedevil the men, but they’re no longer chattel, abuse victims, or prizes to be won. It may not be, as Benioff claims, a direct reaction to the Sansa controversy from last season, but it certainly is a welcome change.